Egyptian companies have long relied on proprietary software to get their work done. There are many reasons for this, mainly lack of knowledge & unawareness of the Free/Open Source alternatives, especially Linux. Most business owners/managers simply don't trust free (as in beer) software. "How would a free O/S have the quality of windows ??" is a popular question. Almost everyone has some kind of windows experience, which makes them feel assured that it will be easy to get technical support.
Well, what about showing a real Egyptian business which relies solely on FOSS ?? That's exactly what we've done. We, 3 members of EGLUG, interviewed Mr. Omar BayehElDin. Mr. Omar is the owner of Abou Youssef company, which works in finshed clothes. He's been running solely on Linux & free software for years, and he's quite satisfied. He forgot all about crashes, viruses & has saved alot of money ever since.
We are:
Ahmed El Sherbiny (ShErbO)
Sherif Nagy (DarKnesS_WolF)
Ahmed El-Mekkawy (linuxawy)
We: Mr. Omar, how and when did you start using Linux ?
Mr. Omar BayehElDin: About 5 years ago, when my relative (who studies in college in USA) told me about it. We then used to play with the system, which wasn't really user friendly at those days.
We: When did you migrate the company PCs to Linux ?
Mr. Omar BayehElDin: I've been running Linux solely in my company for 3 years now. I had been using a Linux fileserver even before the complete switch - which was a 386 by the way!!!.
We: A 386 ?? but it can't cope with all the load ??
Mr. Omar BayehElDin: Thanks to Linux it could, I turned off all unnecessary services and it just ran fine.
We: What was your previous configuration like, before migrating to Linux ?
Mr. Omar BayehElDin: All windows PCs, running Foxpro - except for the Linux server. I then switched to all-Linux PCs, with SQL Ledger instead.
We: What was the main reason you switched to FOSS?
Mr. Omar BayehElDin: The main reason was the letter I recieved from (mosanafat) 3 years ago. They asked me to get rid of any pirated software or else I'd be fined & faced with criminal charges. Then i decided it would be a cost-saver if I switched to Linux. I pay ZERO money for all my software needs!
We: Which distribution are you currently using ? Are you thinking of switching to a new one ?
Mr. Omar BayehElDin: I'm currently running Mandrake 10 OE. I tried all sorts of distros, such as slackware, RedHat and debian - which I failed to install. I'm Thinking of trying FreeBSD, heard it's quite stable and fast (not that Linux isn't).
We: What software does your company use ?
Mr. Omar BayehElDin: Besides regular internet applications and office suites (OpenOffice, KOffice), we use SQL Ledger - which is the centerpiece software. It's an accounting system that does almost anything - and everything. We will discuss it in detail later.
We: What about the support where you get it and it`s avilable?
Mr. Omar BayehElDin: The support is always existes on the internet since you can search on the internet about what you want to know and learn about it. and it`s easy to find if you how and where to search for it.
We: Was the switch to Linux troublesome for your employees ? Does working on Linux require any special skills ?
Mr. Omar BayehElDin: Not at all. They just do the obvious File->open stuff. Nothing fancy, just regular GUIs with menus, data entry fields and stuff which is user-friendly & quite similar to windows applications.
We: How do you access common file formats, such as Microsoft Word documents ?
Mr. Omar BayehElDin: No problems with that. OpenOffice is almost entirely compatible with word.
We: Did you face any hardware and software problems during your period of Linux usage ?
Mr. Omar BayehElDin: A few hardware problems, some problem with the sound card (but that was long ago), and the eternal winmodem problem. and only the arabic support in the old days.
We: How did you overcome the winmodem problem ?
Mr. Omar BayehElDin: I used an external (real) modem, now I'm on ADSL connection.
We: How about stability & security ? Any security incidents or virus infections ?
Mr. Omar BayehElDin: The O/S is quite stable. It rarely crashes. As for security, I've never been hacked before and I'm not affected by the (now popular) windows viruses.
We: We've heard that you've contributed something to the FOSS community. What exactly ?
Mr. Omar BayehElDin: I did complete arabization of the client interface of SQL Ledger.
We thank Mr. Omar for his contribution (FOSS is all about contributing and giving something back) - and for his precious time cuz he was really soo busy and he give us the time we need and was so kind. and actuly he explaned to us a very useful futures in SQL-Ledger. it`s can make invoice , collact final tax , get costs , get the numper of the salles for one supject of the year and alot of another good things it`s just a powerful accounting system.and we posted some screenshot for the SQL-Ledger. We hope this small interview would urge other businesses -who didn't have the courage yet- to start migrating to Open Source software and benefit from the stability, security & cost savings. And now there is some pics of SQL-Ledger in Action.
Comments
rtf ... sql ledger
A question and a correction..
correction -- RTF is not a proprietery format.
question -- Where is the work on Arabizing SQL Ledger and why is it not found in the mainstream distribution?
Mohammed Elzubeir
Arabic is already in SQL Ledger
Dear ElZubeir,
As I understand it, the arabization of SQL Ledger and the Egyptian chart of accounts are already in the base SQL Ledger.
Khalid Baheyeldin (Omar's brother).
(Note to article author: please correct Omar's last name, it is BaheyEldin)
It's impressive that they
It's impressive that they can run on GNU/Linux alone, but I guess anything's possible if you try hard enough. What other type of training has the company have? Go to any accounting seminar, human resources presentations, etc?